


vast

by asexuelf



Series: at the end of yesterday [1]
Category: Sally Face (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Medication, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma, you get a dead parent! you get a dead parent! you're aaaall getting dead parents!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26193544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexuelf/pseuds/asexuelf
Summary: Sal doesn't have a nightmare. Travis doesn't talk about his mom.
Relationships: Sal Fisher/Travis Phelps
Series: at the end of yesterday [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1906528
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	vast

**Author's Note:**

> god i love writing salvis. it's like it just possesses me and then suddenly i've finished a 1k drabble. it's beautiful.
> 
> warnings for panic attack, trauma-based paranoia attack thing, and weird badfeelings mixed with mourning for a lost loved one. also, warnings for brief description of diana's death. i... genuinely couldn't tell if it needed the graphic violence warning, so it's there just in case.
> 
> i hope you enjoy! 💖

It isn't often that a sweltering heat falls over Nockfell. The winter months are cold and the spring perfectly drizzly, but the long days of summer are characterized more by thunderstorms and humidity than outright heat.

If there's one thing that living here has taught Sal, it's that anything can happen.

It's somehow higher than 100°F out, even with the sun shining so dimly behind the waning crescent moon. The stars surrounding it peek out like distant eyes, no clouds in sight for them to hide behind. It's a beautiful night, even accounting for the shockingly dry heat that blows through the open window of Sal's bedroom.

All the way up on the fourth floor, Sal thinks he should be more scared when his eyes drift away from the sky to the dark cement below, but he just feels calm. That can likely be attributed to the company, however.

"Are you tired?" he murmurs, nearly as quiet as the warm breeze.

The boy beside him pauses, considering, before a lazy shrug shakes his shoulders. "Maybe."

Sal turns to him and is treated to the sight of dim moonlight playing across his boyfriend's face. That familiar nose, that gentle jaw… Without thinking, Sal presses a kiss to his warm brown cheek.

"Sal..." Travis is all dimple-y smiles. "Angel, please."

"Yes, my morning star? What ever could you need?"

That still-rare laugh fills the space between them, brash and unpracticed. "It tickles," he grumbles, looking away, smiling wide. "Your- Your kisses. It's too much."

Sal gives him one more, just beneath his ear, to hear his low giggle bubble up again.

Surprisingly, Travis doesn't push him away.

"Okay," Sal finally sighs, many kisses later. The hum of the cicadas has a pavlovian effect on him; his eyelids are heavy, his jaw fighting not to stretch into a yawn. "I need to sleep. I'm going to take a nightmare pill before I get dressed so it has time to kick in."

"Smart thinking."

Travis' eyes follow him as he walks to the be-stickered old dresser. The feeling of being watched makes his neck prickle, so he focuses on other things, like getting all his pills in order.

The bottles are all the same color, which has always annoyed him, especially when he was little and all the big words were hard to remember. He labels them with stickers now; umbrellas or rainclouds for antidepressants, unicorns for his nightmare pills, that sort of thing.

When one unicorn pill and two peace sign pills have been emptied into his palm, he calls back, "Are you joining me?"

A moment passes where Travis simply breathes. When Sal looks back, he's still staring up at the stars. "Maybe soon," he sighs. "For now… I'm enjoying the night air."

"You are? It feels like an oven out there."

Travis laughs quietly. "Maybe I like it that way. Dries out my pores. Singes my eyebrows."

Sal laughs too. Still smiling, he forces down his nightmare pill, plus the two anti-anxiety pills. He sets his antidepressants out for his morning dose, next to two other orange bottles (the peace-sign bottle and one for pain reliever), careful to keep them distanced from the saline glass for his eye. You only make that mistake once.

When Sal is finally dressed down and snuggled up next to Gizmo, Travis still doesn't come to bed. He's still in his shorts and tank top - hasn't even taken his socks or shoes off since he showed up this afternoon. He does, thankfully, seem lucid enough to kiss Sal goodnight. He even promises to sleep before the sun comes up.

He's broken that promise before. Sal kisses him twice, three times. Again.

Eventually, the pills work. Sal is pulled into an artificial, restless sleep.

-

A lack of nightmares doesn't mean a lack of nameless fear to wake him, as Sal has long since learned. Still, when his eye shoots open and he finds himself staring at the familiar brown stain that darkens the ceiling, he feels grateful that his fear wasn't given a face.

Or, as more often is the case, dog teeth and a rifle.

His own remaining teeth aren't rattling with the impact of a dreamy gunshot, so… lucky. His lungs feel sticky like plastic bags and his heart is pumping as if it's forgotten how, but… lucky.

With a steadying breath to get him standing, Sal moves to pee and rehydrate - something, anything, to calm the shaking of his hands and the tightening of his chest. And afterwards, maybe he'll steal a cuddle from Gizmo or a kiss from-

Travis.

Travis, who's still sitting by the window, wreathed in the too-dim blue glow of the night sky. Travis, whose clothed back is facing him, whose face is turned towards the cosmos.

That too-familiar fear grows, like the shadow of an approaching predator stretching across a wall. The silence is eerie in ways it never is with Travis beside him.

Sal can't explain why, but his veins run suddenly cold. The dark is too dark. His throat is too tight.

"Morning star?"

At the sound of his voice, Travis' head turns minisculely, but not enough to show his face. He doesn't speak, just waits. The silence is suffocating.

"Travis?"

The fear in his voice breaks the word in half. It warbles like cracked glass, too-high and too-ragged to sound at all like it's from his mouth, his throat. Just that sound, the sound of panic, sends his mind spiraling towards the dark. He's spiraling, falling through the shadowed bedroom and into someplace so much worse-

"Sal!" Wide brown eyes are staring into his. They aren't afraid - just worried. Worried about him. "Angel, are you okay? Did the pills take a shit again?"

"No." Well, no more than they usually do. "I'm- I'm okay. I'm sorry."

"No sorries." Travis presses his forehead against Sal's sweaty bangs, lets the blue strands stick to his own heat-slicked skin.

"Right. Um, thank you. For pulling me out of my head just now."

Travis makes a breathy little sound that Sal has come to associate with exasperated confusion. It's almost like a laugh. "Okay," he mutters. "You're welcome."

They kiss. It doesn't make the sour panic entirely disappear, but it helps. It's grounding: the reminder that Sal is safe, that _Travis_ is safe.

When Sal pulls away, it's only to breathe. He stays close, wrapped in Travis' arms, held in his spot by the shadows surrounding them and the strange promises that seem to lurk there. The nonexistent eyes peering out from the corners…

Sal shivers in the heat.

"Angel?" Travis' voice is so gentle.

As much as he wants to throw himself at that gentleness, at that warmth, Sal shakes his head. "Why are you still awake? Clock says 3:40."

"AM or PM?"

"Come on, for real."

That seems to stop Travis up short. His hand freezes against Sal's back awkwardly before it returns to its calming caresses. He rubs Sal's back in wide circles and doesn't answer.

Concerning, to say the least.

"...Trav?"

"It's nothing." But he says it too quickly, making Sal's anxious heart make a strange lurch, like missing the last stair of a familiar staircase.

Sal pulls away, truly this time, and walks to the dresser by his bed. There's a short lamp sitting here, and when he flicks it on, it casts its dim glow into the corners of the room, chasing fear away.

In the faint yellow light, Travis' eyes are puffy and red.

"Travis?" Sal's hand doesn't fall back to his side, held up to the lamp's pull switch awkwardly. It slowly gravitates towards his chest as he turns towards his boyfriend. "Morning star, what's wrong?"

More silence. Not meeting his gaze, Travis leans backwards against the window sill. His bleached-blond hair hangs over his eyes.

Sal sits on the bed patiently.

"I'm-" Turning back to the window, Travis lets out a quiet sigh. "- _failing_ not to think of her. Trying so fucking hard, but that means about jack, apparently."

Sal doesn't ask. He already knows. "But why now?" The question is there, even if he doesn't say it aloud: _Would you like to talk about it?_

Travis pushes his hair back from his forehead, chewing on his cheek. "I don't know. I don't really… Like, my memories of her are sad. So fucking sad. And I just keep thinking, like, so were her memories of me, then. They had to have been, right?"

Sal doesn't stand. He tucks his blanket over his legs, over his arms, and doesn't think of how itchy the soft fabric is against his sensitive scars.

"Do you think she hated me, Sally Face?"

"What do _I_ think?" Sal's eyes grow wide. "No, Travis. In her shoes, I… Well, I would have loved you, no matter what. So, so much."

That emptiness, that distant acceptance of unhappiness, doesn't fade from his boyfriend's face. Though tears shine in his eyes, those same eyes look almost hollow. He looks far away. Like a war vet or something. Like the mirror that Sal can never look at directly.

"You aren't everyone, Sal," he says simply.

Sal stares at the bleach stain on Travis' striped tank. It's easier than looking at his face. "I guess not. Still… No matter what she felt, you deserved love."

"I'm just... not really thinking about myself right now."

A horrible crack. Blood. A choked shout. Pain, fear. Sirens. Did she feel it? Was she alive when the ambulance came?

"Yeah," Sal says. "I know what you mean."

Travis leans his head backwards against the bedroom wall. A line of sweat trails down his neck and disappears into his shirt.

"Come to bed?" Sal asks helplessly. He doesn't know how to help Travis, because Travis can't be helped. Neither of them can. "Please?"

A quiet exhale. Then Travis nods. "Okay. Just let me change."

"Don't leave. Please."

Travis stops, stares. His gaze is damning. His eyes are tender. "Okay," he finally says.

When he changes his clothes, tank and shorts for a tee and old boxers, he doesn't hide. Just like Sal doesn't hide his stare. There's no shame between them. Travis brings a salt-sour scent to the bed, still sweat-stained and unshowered, but Sal buries his nose into the dark roots of Travis' hair anyways. He breathes in summer's warmth and waits for time to pass.

Tomorrow isn't a new day, not really, but it's a day they might not feel like this, so with Travis' head on his chest, the too-hot blanket covering them both, they wait.

Together, they wait.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading 🌜


End file.
